Me Me Me

Soho Noir

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Smalllogo Someone just sent me this link to a Q&A interview I did some time ago with Soho Noir. I missed it when it originally went online. Here’s an excerpt:

What inspires your writing, where do your ideas come from?

When I was a kid, what inspired me was the sheer pleasure of writing and living in my dreams. Now my inspiration is equally driven by fear…the terror of not being able to pay my bills. My ideas can come from anywhere…an article in the newspaper, an overheard conversation, a "what-if" thought while driving in my car, a life experience. I never seem to be at a loss for ideas…it’s the details that kill me.

Novelist, scriptwriter, producer, you have been very successful at all three, and we are interested to know if you have a preference. If you had to choose between the three which one would it be?

If I could make the same amount of money writing books as I do from writing/producing TV shows, I could see walking away from screenwriting. I love TV, but the politics you have to deal with and the games you have to play can be exhausting and infuriating. On the other hand, being a novelist is a solitary pursuit and in television, you’re surrounded by enormously creative people and it’s inspiring.

There is a lot of fun in your work, is it difficult mixing crime with humour and why put the two together?

I can’t imagine writing anything without humor. There’s always something funny in every situation, it’s the balance that’s hard. But I find that humor is often what humanizes a character and makes the unbelievable believable.

Jack Webb’s Star

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Publisher’s Weekly singled out my short story "Jack Webb’s Star" in their review of the upcoming anthology HOLLYWOOD AND CRIME:
 

The 14 stories in this entertaining anthology from Shamus
Award–founder Randisi span Tinsel Town history from the 1930s to the
present and intersect, literally, at Hollywood and Vine. Top billing should go to Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch
story, "Suicide Run," and to Lee Goldberg’s "Jack Webb’s Star"—the
former for the detection and the latter for biggest laughs. Other
highlights include Max Allan Collins and Matthew V. Clemens’s
reinvention of one of the Three Stooges, Moe Howard, as a detective in
their clever "Murderlized," about the 1937 death of the Stooges’
mentor, vaudevillian Ted Healy. Robert S. Levinson delivers a wicked
portrait of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper in "And the Winner Is…,"
which turns on her lackey’s efforts to stop a Nazi sharpshooter at the
1960 Academy Awards. From Harry Bosch’s visit to a photographer at Hollywood & Vine Studios to Moe’s meeting at a coffee shop at that intersection, all the tales pay homage to the storied Hollywood street corner. (June)

 

Me on TV…again

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I’m back again as a guest on Steve Murphy’s INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with NY criminal defense attorney Laura Miranda. I come in about mid-way through the episode to talk about MONK, DIAGNOSIS MURDER and  my daughter’s literary aspirations. And stick around after he says good-bye to me…because I come right back, teaming with Laura.

And if you missed me on INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with famed criminal defense attorney Tom Mesereau, you can see it here.

Me on TV

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You can catch me and criminal defense attorney Thomas Mesereau together on the latest episode of  INSIDER EXCLUSIVE with Steve Murphy on the web and on a cable station near you. Steve is a congenial interviewer and, although he makes a couple errors (he calls me the "creator and host" of MONK on the "USA Today" network), it was a lot of fun to be a guest and I think you’ll enjoy watching. I taped as second episode that day, with another criminal defense attorney, and will share that link with you as soon as I get it.

Fast Track

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One of the reasons I have been jetting back-and-forth to Europe a lot lately is because I’m writing and producing a two-hour movie/pilot for Action Concept that will be shot in Berlin in May for  broadcast on ProSieben (a big German network) and worldwide in international syndication. I’ve waited until we got the firm greenlight before sharing the news with you (I’m superstitious that way).

The project is called FAST TRACK and is about urban street racing (yes, I’m being intentionally vague). The movie will be packed with amazing, street-racing action (check out the Action Concept website to see what these guys can do!) and shot entirely in English. The leading roles are being cast in Los Angeles by Burrows/Boland,  who did LORD OF THE RINGS, KING KONG, CAST AWAY, 21 JUMP STREET, CONTACT, A-TEAM, DIAGNOSIS MURDER and MARTIAL LAW, to name a few.

I’ll bring you reports from the set as production moves along.

Not Guilty

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I’m heading off to Burbank this morning to tape two episodes of the TV show INSIDER EXCLUSIVE, hosted by Steve Murphy.  I’m going to be on with famed criminal defense attorney Thomas Messerau. It seems like an odd-pairing to me. I feel like I should say that I am not guilty and let him do all the talking.  Past authors on Steve’s  show include Michael Connelly, Danielle Steele,  Linda Fairstein, Joseph Wambaugh, David Baldacci, Scott Turow and Jonathan Kellerman, so I am in good company. A few weeks back, I was a guest on Steve’s syndicated radio show and had a great time, so I’m sure things will work out.

Inside The Writers Room

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Writer/producer Matt Witten talks with Deutsche Welle about the Media Exchange "Writers Room" seminars I’ve been doing with Action Concept in Germany. Matt sums it up pretty nicely:

American shows tend to be pretty fast-paced and vigorously structured,
and the way we structure the action and the conflict for our main
characters has been thought through in ways that are fresh for German
writers, they haven’t necessarily heard it described in these terms. So
it gives them a new way of looking at the writing they’re doing. They
were also intrigued by the fact that in America we have staff writers
who meet every day, and we have a head writer responsible for the
consistency of the show — "the show-runner." These concepts are new in
Germany, where there is no cohesion of writing staff. Instead, episodes
are written by freelancers who turn in maybe just two a year. Another
thing in American TV is that directors don’t have the power to change
the script without talking to the writer.

Woe is Me

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Sorry I haven’t been around — jet-lag and technology woes have worked against me. Two days before I left for Europe, my desktop computer crashed. While I was away, my wife reported that my wireless home network crumbled, my Tivo locked up, and the brakes on my car failed. The day I got home, the power adapter for my laptop burned out (better then than on the trip!) and my wife’s laptop belly-flopped. I have spent the last few days fixing all of that…and myself, too (I really got nailed by jet-lag). And yesterday was my birthday, so I took a day off to rest up.

I have since ordered a new desktop computer, a new laptop for my wife, a new power cord for my laptop, reset my router (and added Range Expander to the system), and took my car into the shop. Everything should be humming  along again in the next few days. I’m even beginning to feel like myself again.  But the price-tag for all of those repairs/purchases is going  to be pretty steep. I’d better get to work!

Today I met with the casting director on a new movie/pilot I am working on, paid bills, sorted through the accumulated mail (email and snail-mail),  read two scripts for proposed Action Concept projects, and took a ton of clothes into the dry cleaner. Exciting, huh?

Which has left me with nothing really to say for the blog. I’ll be back soon, I’m sure.

Home Again

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I’m back in L.A…and feeling the full wallop of jet-lag. My last day two days in Sweden were  rough — I got some kind of awful stomach bug that nearly sidelined me completely. As it was, I didn’t eat and hardly slept for 24 hours…and no sooner did I recover from that, I had to get up at 3 a.m. to make a 6 a.m. flight home.  Ugh.

Other than that,  I had a great time in Stockholm working with writer-producers, network execs, and studio development folks from Holland,  Norway, Belgium and Sweden.  I love these "cross-cultural" exchanges…I certainly learn a lot from the experience and I hope the others do, too.

I’ve been surprised to learn that often American television shows do better than the locally-produced programs, despite  the language and cultural differences. Production values play a part, of course, but I believe the success is due to the power of  franchise in American television shows. Our series  tend to have  concepts so distinct that they are clear whether the characters are speaking French, German, or Swahili. Look at CSI, MONK, LAW & ORDER, HOUSE…the concepts and characters are so strong, you can immediately grasp what the shows are about regardless of where you come from.

I also think American shows do so well  because of the four act structure, something that’s missing from virtually all European TV shows. The four-act structure creates a narrative drive that’s simply missing from most European shows that I’ve seen.  All you need to do is spend ten minutes watching a German or Swedish cop show and the difference is clear.

And it probably also has something to  do with the reliable consistency of U.S. shows…regardless of the series, viewers know that they are going to get the same show every week, only different. You know what you are going to get from CSI…the stories may change, but it’s essentially the same show week after week, year after year.

My job on this trip — along  with William  Rabkin and Matt Witten — was  to introduce the European writers/producers/execs to the principles behind creating and serving a franchise, developing stories within the four-act structure, and maintaining the consistency of a series. The people we worked with embraced the ideas we discussed and were very enthusiastic about applying the principles so that they can be more competitive both in their  own countries and internationally.